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I am not a cold weather person. Even on the hottest summer days, I still manage to have cold hands and feet – winter is a whole other kettle of fish. It’s depressing, painful, dark and long. But there are still some lovely things about winter.. I just have to remind myself, constantly, so I don’t get too down about the fact that springlike weather is still 4-5 months away.

Hot chocolate. Soy chai lattes. All manner of gorgeous teas. I’m not a coffee girl at all. I want to go on a mini shopping spree at T2 sometime soon – their rooibos blends (especially ones with vanilla or almond) smell like cake!

Getting to wear gorgeous coats, stockings, boots and woolen dresses.

Hot baths, followed up by my favourite pajamas.

Being able to eat super hot ‘yang’ foods like Taiwanese beef noodle soup and not feel sick afterwards

Getting to wear a warm, cuddly scarf! I’m currently knitting three different scarves (I get distracted) – a huge one in gloomy charcoal and eggplant for Nath, a chunky one in teal for me, and a little cream one for Posie!.. now, if I can only convince her to wear it.

Laying in bed while it rains outside with a sleepy, cuddly puppy.

Toasting marshmallows on an open fire. We don’t do this too often, unfortunately, because I’m not so great at chopping firewood..

So I am stuck at my Dad’s house; babysitting his dog, cat and step-son (who is older than me yet incapable of operating a washing machine without breaking it). My Dad and his partner were meant to be home on Monday, but are stranded in the UK. And he’s not very good at answering emails. Gah.

Though I have to admit, “sorry, I’m stuck in Europe because of a giant ash cloud from a volcano” is a pretty good excuse. I wish we had active volcanoes in Australia. When I lived in Taipei, we lived on the uncool side of Yangmingshan, which is a dormant volcano – dormant meaning that it hasn’t erupted in a very, very long time and is unlikely to erupt again soon, but it might. The ‘might’ part was a bit scary; towards the end of our time living there, the road near our house started cracking and lifting in places. There was a huge sulfur smell, and warm water with yellow sediment started spewing out of these little ‘vents’ on the side of the road. Creepy, considering that the volcano wasn’t ‘extinct’ and we lived right on it.

I really, really want to go back and live in Taipei one day. When I was little, the community radio station ICRT in Taiwan was one of my major obsessions. It was such a unique thing – being the only English radio station for music (as opposed to, say, BBC radio or something boring), they had to cater to literally all tastes. So apart from the dedicated jazz or world music shows, we got this mash-up of Asian pop music, trans-Atlantic pop/rock, a few oldies and the rest of the time was dedicated to the absolute dorkiest of dorky music. Think Celine Dion, Air Supply, Bryan Adams, etc. I loved it so much; I even interviewed my favourite DJ for the school newspaper. There really isn’t anything similar here and it has sort of been a bit of a dream to one day go back to Taipei and work at ICRT. And eat dumplings all day, dress like a Harajuku princess, pay ridiculous prices for breakfast cereal but get expensive fabric for practically nothing, and go out for karaoke every single night.

For a lark, I decided to audition for Tokyo Disneyland – they were doing an international audition tour to find singers, dancers, aerialists and character look-alikes for the resort. I rocked up for the character audition; they were specifically looking for characters including some that I sort of resemble (Ariel, Aurora, Alice in Wonderland, etc), and a lot of people have previously described my demeanor as very “Disney princess”. So I figured I’d go along and try my luck. But the audition process was a bit of a LOLfest – this is what I learnt:

just because you are not auditioning to be a dancer does not mean you won’t be hit with an audition dance component

when you question this, prepare to be patronizingly told by a fellow auditionee, “It’s not a dance, they are just going to teach us a combination“

a ‘combination’ entails being able to execute a sequence to music with almost no practice, while someone barks at you, “Chassé! Balancé! Pas de bourrée! Step, pivot, present , wave to the right for 4, wave to the left for 8, and… POSE!”

standard attire for a non-dance audition seems to be leotards, tights and ballet split-soles

this can be accompanied by a full face of stage makeup, if you like – false eyelashes and clashy red lipstick, yeah!

Shrug. I don’t know – with the dance component, it just seemed redundant to pretend that it was based on something other than our looks.

Oh well. After the audition, I ate an almond croissant, had a wander through one of my favourite furniture stores and went home for an afternoon nap, before coming back to Nathan’s for spaghetti and a night on the couch watching Extras– so whatever… I think in the way I spent the rest of the day, I out-princessed everybody anyway.

Somebody knocked on the front door for the sixth or seventh time today, and I totally ignored it. I should make a sign: “This is not Stuart’s personal nightclub.” There are all these randoms coming in and out of the house I am supposed to be looking after, and I apparently have no say. It’s frustrating too because I am supposed to be responsible in all this, as the designated housesitter. Woe. I would have left already if I thought the animals would get looked after at all if I weren’t here.

Nath just played a particularly cruel joke on me. The house phone rang, I answered, and didn’t expect him to be calling me on that number nor did I recognize his voice (my head is so stuffed up, everything sounds as though I’m underwater). This was our conversation –

Nath: Hello.
Bunny: Hello.
N: … hi.
B: Oh, sorry, this is L’s partner C’s daughter Bunny, who is housesitting while they are in Europe. Who is this?
N: I’m one of C’s friends, from university. Would you like to buy a puppy?
B: Um, what?
N: Well, actually, you can have it. I’m going overseas.
B: Sorry, why are you calling? Who is this?
N: I’m friends with your Dad and I was just calling around to see if anybody wanted my puppy.
B:…. how old is it? What breed? How long do you have to go overseas for?
N: She’s about 9 months old, pomeranian. I’m leaving permanently.
B: (just about dies of happiness) Oh oh oh! I am super interested! Um, I actually have a maltese-pomeranian who needs a playmate! Does she have a name already?
N: Ummm… yeah. Po…. Possum.
B: Possum? Um, okay.
N: Well, you better call Nathan and ask him then.
B: (has one of those “the call is coming from inside the house” moments)…. how do you know his name?
N: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA etc

Then in my imagination, I punched him in the face and broke his nose. In reality, I burst into tears.

To be fair, he was extremely apologetic. But no forgiveness tonight. If he magically found a way to teleport here with chicken noodle soup, panadol, Posie and this imaginary puppy, I might change my mind.

The dog and cat I am looking after while he is away seemed confused too – waking me up at 6:30am to be fed. RUDE.

So, yes – wishing that I could fast forward these next few weeks; being here in my Dad’s house and essentially under his command (despite him being overseas) is making me realize how much I like to do things my way, how much I miss my own space, my own things, even just the ability to feel comfortable in my own space. All of my books, films, music, everything.. it’s all in boxes in my Mum’s garage right now. Probably getting eaten by mice and bugs. Gah.

I like eating toast over the sink because I am too lazy (some would say smart) to have to wash a plate afterwards. I love the juxtaposition of an oriental tea set and a life-size facehugger from Alien as an interior decorating choice. I like drinking gin all night and then making videos of Nath dancing to theme songs from 70s Italian B-grade dinosaur vs hunter flicks. I love 3am trips to Kmart because I simply need to watch Independence Day or Dante’s Peak or Twister, right now.

Mope, mope, mope.

Catty is off to Europe in.. gee, a few months. I am v. jealous x 100. So I am planning an imaginary trip for me. Imaginary in that it probably won’t happen, but planning it because it might. I would love to go to Taiwan for a few weeks, maybe take Nath and show him where I grew up, visit people I haven’t seen in a million years. I’d love it – roaming around Taipei, never sleeping, doing all the things I wanted to do when I was little but didn’t, going down to Taichung, visiting Sun Moon Lake and Taroko Gorge, etc. I stalked my old house on Google maps and found that it is most probably uninhabited now – the swimming pool is empty and full of dust, the garden is totally unkempt. It’s sad; I would honestly buy it if I could.

Today, I woke up feeling totally refreshed. I’ve had ridiculous stress acne along my jaw lately for the first time in my life, but this morning it finally seemed to have cleared up. It was warm but overcast, slightly humid and a bit windy; perfection.

So I got up from my huge bed piled high in Egyptian cotton sheets and hot men, pulled on my vintage silk robe and wandered out to my provincial kitchen, full of totally necessary but aesthetically concealed modern gadgets. Awwww… Mummy had stopped by and made blueberry pancakes! Blood orange juice, pour moi? Posie and Xiao-Gui were frolicking outside the French doors, amongst the heirloom roses in my Dan Bifano-designed garden – yes, that’s right, I bought Oprah’s Montecito teahouse. Actually it was more of a gift.. you know, in honour of my incredible contribution to literature, art, music and human rights. And awesomeness, obviously.

The rest of the day was spent reading books specifically written with my tastes in mind, listening to my favourite bands perform live for me in my acoustically perfect living room, checking out the Shih Lin Night Market in Taipei, a gigantic dinner party with people I adore, the perfect gift of a magical ‘delete’ button to banish all noise and rubbish from my life, and finally.. fairy bread.

Okay, so maybe that’s all lies. Ignore me… DISTRACTION – aren’t these guys adorable? The one on the right looks like a fluffy bowling pin:

I think they win at life today. I met two gorgeous silky ferrets going for a walk down Bourke Street yesterday though, so they get the gold medal for yesterday.

Okay, so everything sucked balls today. Crusty, hairy ones with some sort of horrible as-yet unclassified STD and an unsettlingly floral fragrance. No cure, but the treatment involves sharing the mundane junk that amused me today between all the actual junk:

Dina Goldstein’s Fallen Princesses – photographs of Disney princesses at odds with reality. Snow White with crying babies on her hips, Cinderella drinking alone in a seedy bar, Pocahontas watching TV in the dark surrounded by a million cats.

China’s aerospace program has set a prerequisite for any prospective female astronauts; they must be married and a mother. Because you know, any other type of woman really isn’t human – it’s probably this assumption, even more than the discrimination, that makes me angry. But… whole ‘nother post. Or ten.